Case Study: Improving Wi-Fi QoS and Performance in Rural Environments

This is a case study on how to improve Wi-Fi quality of service (QoS) and performance in rural environments.

Problem: poor quality of service in a rural community

Without a doubt, one of the major issues service providers will continue to face in provisioning WiFi networks is Quality of Service (QoS). In addition to poor performance, QoS issues result in unhappy customers, vulnerability to competitor offerings and difficulty in selling higher value services.

Poor QoS was a challenge being faced by Edgewater Wireless Customer – TPNet. The company had installed 6 Mikrotik APs and 6 Antennas on a single transmission tower providing broadband access to 250 customers within a small rural community in Brazil. As is typical in many rural communities, wireline infrastructure is non-existent and, as a result, WiFi is required to provide basic internet service in these locations. TPNet wanted to improve QoS and network performance to improve their customer service as well as provide added value services and increase per/subscriber revenue.

Solution: multi-channel Wi-Fi access points

TPNet turned to our partners Linkpower and CWT, worked with TPNet to test the viability of implementing an Edgewater Wireless AP solution to eliminate the performance and interference issues the service provider was experiencing. Based on initial site surveys it was determined that a single Edgewater Wireless multi-channel WiFi AP would be installed to address the QoS and interference issues.

The new Edgewater Wireless AP was installed without disconnecting the 6 Mikrotik APs to test performance and ensure the major interference issues would be eliminated.

Edgewater Wireless’ AP was installed with two antennas – TX and RX, industry type with 120 degree opening, 20dBi gain, horizontal polarization. The Edgewater Wireless Access Point was also configured with five virtual APs – distributed in channels 1, 6 and 11 with different SSIDs and in the standard 802.11b/g 2.4GHz frequency band. Testing and survey results concluded that the coverage area of the new Edgewater Wireless AP had a radius of 4 km serving over 250 subscribers. This was of immense value to TPNet allowing the WISP to turn off all six of their Mikrotik APs with no need for additional technical action to support their customers. TPNet achieved significantly improved network performance and QoS resulting in their subscribers having better dramatically improved internet connectivity and throughput capacity.

Excellent results

Edgewater Wireless’ multi-channel AP solution allowed TPNet to solve their QoS and network performance issues while enabling the company to sell higher quality services and expand their subscriber base. The results were tremendously positive as the company had seen their sales paralyzed – not being able to sell additional services with their previous solution.

Edgewater Wireless’ partner – LinkPower, continuously provided further support and worked with TPNet to alter the transmission power of the AP – further increasing the coverage area and improving subscribers’ signal levels. All subscriber access to TPNet’s network is now substantially improved and is much more reliable serving more customers in the region.

Read this case study online and find out more about Edgewater Wireless solutions for urban and rural environments.

Edgewater Wireless develops and commercializes leading edge technologies and intellectual property for the communications market. Edgewater Wireless delivers advanced product solutions designed to meet the high-performance, high quality of service (QoS) and high-reliability needs of service providers and their customers. Leveraging over twenty (20) patents, Edgewater Wireless is redefining WiFi infrastructure with its wideband, multi-channel radio and high- capacity Access Point solutions, and delivering next generation WiFi, today.

Edgewater Wireless is a publicly traded company based in Canada. Its access points are used widely not only in North America, but also in Asia and Latin America, where demand for high-speed broadband service is driving wireless broadband deployments.